"Hello! I've brought you a plant!!"

Athina Garden City is a project initiated by Catriona Gallagher and Fanis Kafantaris to establish a new garden in the backyard of A – DASH, in Athens. It was instigated as an ongoing project to found a working garden as a host-site for responses to the life of plants in the city of Athens and further afield. The founding of the garden is a conceptual exercise in horticulture, botany and design, creating both a testing ground for ideas and a place in which to meet. The garden will grow and develop, with further interactions and plants introduced over time.

Part 1 of Athina Garden City took place in April 2017 as a Spring workshop on propagating plants by taking cuttings. Participants were invited on a walk up to the nearby Lycabettus hill from A - DASH to take cuttings and help us begin a collection of a wide variety of plants from around the city. The cuttings were planted and those that took root are now growing as the first plants of the garden.

Part 2 of Athina Garden City takes place in September 2017, after the heat of summer, and celebrates the initial opening of the new garden with ”Hello! I have brought you a plant!!”. Artists have been invited to select a plant for the garden and consider its poetic significance to them or their practices and its presence in Athens. The plant collection will be expanded with these artists’ plants, alongside donations and contributions from friends and garden visitors.

As a busy project space and studio, the garden at A - DASH has been designed for flexible usage, able to readjust according to the needs of the project space and the artists’ practices. Part 2 will also, therefore present the first constructed elements of the garden’s design.

The opening of the garden involves many collaborators’ inputs, from donators, propagaters and growers, artists and non-artists, who have selected plants for the collection and will be involved in the project in the future.